As it says Spartan games have ceased trading with immediate effect

I saw this news a short while ago and was very surprised by it.  I've never had much interest in the products but Dystopian Wars was hugely popular around 5 years ago and they had a Halo license as well at one point, so they were a fair sized outfit.  I see that they've cancelled their Kickstarter as well.

Did they lose the Halo licence?....I remember it being expensive for 15mm

Quote from: Fenton on 25 August 2017, 05:11:53 PM
Did they lose the Halo licence?....I remember it being expensive for 15mm

I've no idea I'm afraid, there's been so many companies picking up large IP licenses these past few years that I've lost track of them all!

Very sad news it's always sad when a company closes I never had any of their products or rules or anything but  many people will be scrambling to finish off collections

Take care

Andy

"In addition to challenging trading issues, one of the directors has suffered from a long period of poor health which became significantly more serious earlier this year and although now back in the business, requires ongoing treatment.  That has inevitably taken a toll on the amount of time available to the business so, along with other challenges, has significantly contributed to this difficult decision."

Sad News but nothing compared To someone in ill health. Hope he gets well soon!

I'm guessing that the Halo licence would have been expensive but the Halo game itself didn't seem to set the gaming world alight.

Spartan always seemed to be focusing on "the next game" rather than finishing what they had started and whilst I really loved their miniatures, their rules were over-complex in my opinion.

Great shame though. A lot of people have lost money due to unfulfilled Spartan kickstarter orders too. I've only lost 50 quid for a pre-ordered item bought direct from Spartan which I assume will not now be produced.

I see Tor Gaming have also shut their doors today.

Ye gods, and with Steel Fist now up for sale it seems that the wargaming world is going through yet another dramatic change.

I think Steel Fist is doing OK, the fella running it just doesn't enjoy the admin and packing part of the business and was only doing it as a side line.

Tor are shutting as well. Judging by his statement it's not a crash, just not worth flogging a dying horse when he could stop with honour, as it were.

As I understand Spartan they massively overextended on Halo, spread themselves way to thin trying to recover and just couldn't keep afloat.

There's a few gone under in the States as well - the gaming table people went owing a lot of people a lot cash for tables according to the court papers and claims :/

Quote from: toxicpixie on 25 August 2017, 11:24:32 PM
Tor are shutting as well. Judging by his statement it's not a crash, just not worth flogging a dying horse when he could stop with honour, as it were.

As I understand Spartan they massively overextended on Halo, spread themselves way to thin trying to recover and just couldn't keep afloat.

There's a few gone under in the States as well - the gaming table people went owing a lot of people a lot cash for tables according to the court papers and claims :/

Who? Geek chic?

Yep.

https://www.tabletopgaming.co.uk/board-games/news/geek-chic-one-of-the-first-big-custom-gaming-table-makers-has-gone

Judging by their prices, their deposit/payment whilst making pricing structure, speed of building and the number of people waiting there was a lot of money tied up in "on the way tables" when they went under :/

Steel Fist Miniatures is in a healthy position, as I am aware.

As clibinarium said, the chap has a full-time profession and Steel Fist is merely an avenue for him to relax and sculpt. The success of it all has really meant that he's had to make the decision that he has, probably.

As to Tor Miniatures. I have some of their Ridend 'feudal-medieval goblins' and they're great little sculpts. Never got around to painting or playing with them, though, so BNIB. When I ordered them the parcel got lost in the post, then the replacement order was missing items, then when I did receive everything there was extra stuff included and I was bothered in case the chap had made an error - he hadn't, it was a 'sorry about this' gesture but without any message to explain. It went on for so long and with all the mix-ups, and me being concerned he might think I was trying to con him, I just forgot about the game and found something else. Just checked to see if the few Ridend items I'm missing are available to buy from him, as I might just yet make a Lion Rampant army for them, but it looks like all the items on the official webstore are 'out of stock'. Pity that, as they're fun little miniatures.

Yeah, I really like the aesthetic of the Tor stuff but I've way too much else to fail to do to have ever got any!

We played Dystopian wars at club, it was a fun game, but too many counters for my liking

They seemed to fall into the GW mode of each subsequent army/fleet gradually got more and more powerful so it became unbalanced.

Shame though

It'll be interesting to see if any of these companies continue under new ownership or simply disappear.  I'd imagine that Spartan is too big for the majority of people to buy, so you'd need one of the other major players to step in and buy them up.  Tor have got a nice little range so there should be several suitors looking at those you'd think.  Steel Fist have got some fantastic sculpts but the asking price I've heard on the grapevine is crazy, unless he's got some solid sales numbers to back it up.

MMS are also shutting down, owner is retiring. He would sell, but is asking far too higher price for it. Be interesting to know how much Skytrex charged for the stuff they sold off.

IanS

PS - Shaun from S&S valued his range at over £1,000,000, but I suspect that was very tongue in cheek.

Quote from: ianrs54 on 26 August 2017, 01:13:53 PM
MMS are also shutting down, owner is retiring. He would sell, but is asking far too higher price for it. Be interesting to know how much Skytrex charged for the stuff they sold off.

IanS

PS - Shaun from S&S valued his range at over £1,000,000, but I suspect that was very tongue in cheek.

MMS were lovely kits, very detailed. I think the wargames market has gone away from fiddley detailed kits to fast build ones such as those by Armourfast and Plastic Soldier company.  The moulding process now produce muc more detailed kits without all the fiddley bits to put together. that's not to dtreacty from the quality of MMS kits just that most wargamers do not want detailed kits with fragile parts  - they want gaming pieces

Skytrex was priced at £200,000 with a turnover of just under £300,000.  They held an absolute ton of stock as well, must have been over 12 months worth just sitting there.

They ended up breaking the ranges down and trying to sell them separately instead, but even then only a few sold.  We looked at the 1/144th WWI planes ourselves, which were priced at £17,000 I think, but they had no sales info for the range and they were old moulds that needed replacing.  With 58 planes in the range, we could have had new models made and moulded for about half that price so it just wasn't viable.  

Orcs - if you have ever tried to assemble a Battlefront Flak 36 - the single 37 - you'll know your assertion is only partially correct, still cant see how the shield fits.

Thanks Leon, was interested for personal reasons.

IanS